Bound to the Sky
by MaullarMaullar
Summary: A Sola fanfic, wherein Mana and Matsuri confront a peril of a... different nature.


BOUND TO THE SKY

A Sola fanfic ;o

If the large black car was out of place in a little Japanese seaside town, it was infinitely moreso as it idled before a quiet, cozy restaurant. The establishment's pastel-toned façade and the slate-gray sky alike reflected off the vehicle's rain-beaded gloss finish.  
"I fear I may never understand this country's frivolous hobbies, my friend," said a bony man slouched in the backseat. "What self-respecting crime boss requests a meeting in a place like this?"  
"Patience, Naokivich," replied another man, attired like his companion in heavy, earth-toned trenchcoat. "This is no lowly street thug we are dealing with. Surely our colleague must have his reasons."  
"You shall soon have your chance to ask him." Naokivich peered out a tinted window at a luxury car rounding the corner, splashing mud on a goateed and bespectacled bystander in the process.

…

The restaurant's door swung open with the jingle of a small brass bell, beckoning a waitress over. The slender young woman wore a short salmon-pink dress, accented from below by dark pantyhose, from above by a blanched-white bustier, and tied up at the neck with red ribbon. Her gentle face, framed by short brown hair with a gold-plated hairclip in the shape of a fish, bore an earnest smile as the girl introduced herself as Mana.  
"His reasons, hm?" Naokivich whispered as the party followed Mana to the restaurant's sole VIP room.

The VIP room had little to offer besides four walls and a slightly-above-average table set, but Mana was quick and courteous in seating the men and offering menus. As she left with the orders, Naokivich and company turned to their host and his retinue.  
"Please accept my humble welcome to Japan, gentlemen," said the man, business type, unremarkable but for a pair of imitation designer sunglasses. "May fortune unite our enteprises in prosperity and in cultural understanding."  
"Well spoken," Naokivich said with a deep nod. "But let us not tarry with formalities, there is much to discuss."

Mana approached the VIP room with a tray of appetizers. Her fingers were almost on the doorknob when she caught something about smuggling in the snatches of speech that slipped from the confines of the room. Wishing to believe she had misheard, the girl pressed herself up against the door and strained her ears.  
"With all due respect, friend, we are not fully convinced of your proposal's viability."  
"Ah, but the profits to be had from piracy are as strong as ever, and the risks negligible." The man in sunglasses picked up a sumptuous aroma as he spoke, hand-signaled his men to the door.  
"Even so, we have difficulty envisioning a market for this 'Vocaloid' software in our country."  
"Then make one for yourself. Pepsi did it, and they hadn't the benefit of enforcers."  
Mana was deliberating whether to call the police when the door swung open (almost causing her to fall) and rough hands pulled her into the VIP room.

The brass bell jingled and a few crystalline droplets fell from the folds of a crimson umbrella. A pretty young woman, trim figure garbed in pink and red, walked into the restaurant with buoyant step; she paused to set the umbrella down and to savor the feel of heated air on her rosy cheeks. Though the rain had stopped, it was still a bleak and cold day, and neither the girl's thin blouse nor the short vest she wore over it offered much defense against the cold. It helped little that she had been running around in a miniskirt, lithe legs unshielded but for a pair of black thigh-high stockings.  
The girl doffed her deep red beret and checked for damp spots where rainwater might have chanced to hit. Satisfied, she replaced the cap atop her hip-length, pansy-purple hair. Soft violet eyes, set in an attractive face, scanned the room briefly. "Yoo-hoo, Mana! Are you here? It's me, Matsuri!"  
Strange, Matsuri thought as her only answer was a couple of blank stares. She could've sworn Mana was working at this hour.

Mana of course wanted to reply to Matsuri, but each attempt was prematurely thwarted, waylaid in her brain by the knowledge of the gun at her neck.  
"Tell your friend to go," the gunman rasped.  
"I'm busy now, Matsuri." Though Mana was petrified, her concern for Matsuri's safety kept her voice steady. "Come back tomorrow."  
"What are you talking about?" Matsuri's voice came from closer now as Mana cursed silently. "You said this is always the slowest time of day—"  
Matsuri stopped mid-sentence as she stepped into the doorframe of the VIP room, beheld the scene inside, the unsavory-looking men standing around the table, one with a very distraught-looking Mana hostage.  
"If only you'd listened to your friend," a man said. "If you value her life more than her advice, I'd suggest you turn around and put your hands where we can see them."  
Matsuri stood still, looked into Mana's anxious eyes, looked at the guns leveled at her—looked at her feet as she acquiesced. She suppressed a squeak as she felt a pistol's barrel press into the base of her neck, an inch below the black choker she wore. "If you harm Mana, I won't forgive you," she muttered.  
"Duly noted. Don't bother with the check, gentlemen, we must go before any more nosy girls make their appearance."

…

"That backwater of a restaurant and its burlesque waitresses I was willing to tolerate," Naokivich fumed. "But this utterly idiotic plan—"  
"Yes, yes," Naokivich's friend replied dismissively. "But if we simply shot them, what would that indicate to our new partners?"  
"Efficiency, for one?"  
"Artlessness. We are guests in this country, friend, and image is everything."  
"I pray that this deal proves to be worth debasing our organization so."

The criminals' motorcade pulled away from an unassuming abandoned warehouse. The building had fallen into disuse several years ago; stripped by vandals, it was illuminated only by a few pallid shafts of light spilling from shattered windows. Amidst the detritus of the years sat Matsuri and Mana, bound and gagged back-to-back, as a bomb resting next to them counted silently down.  
The girls' tied hands pressed into each other's backs as they writhed and pulled at their bonds. Stout coils of rope held their arms and legs fast; knotted well against slackening, they might as well have been iron bands. The unlucky girls worked in silence punctuated by labored "mmmph"s and "hnnng"s. The ropes chafed, dug into pantyhose and stocking alike.

Matsuri had read enough adventure stories to know that when being tied up, she should hold her wrists slightly apart; in so doing she could earn a bit of slack. Unfortunately, her captors, wise to this stratagem, had cinched the rope between her wrists, making it as a pair of cuffs from which she simply could not coax either hand. And though, as a Yaka, she possessed strength superior to that of a normal human, it was not enough to break loose. Defeated, Matsuri let out a muffled whimper and resigned her final moments to staring at the floor; she tried without much success to picture the blotches of grease and grime as clouds in a clear blue sky.

Mana reluctantly gave up her struggle as well, and as the tension fled her muscles she was suddenly reminded of the acute chill in the warehouse, accented by the light sweat she had worked up. "Hrmmmf…"  
As she stole a glance at the bomb's timer—23 seconds left—Mana's thoughts began to drift. How would little Koyori make it without a big sister? What would become of Yorito without a responsible friend to keep him in line? And what about her girlfriends—Sae, Chisato, Touko?

What about Matsuri?

"I'm sorry you got involved because of me, Matsuri." Mana's words were lost to the duct tape layered over her mouth, but she didn't particularly care. "It was fun knowing you…"

Mana felt movement, looked over her shoulder at Matsuri—the other girl was working her arms again. What could her plan be? Even if she did wrest a hand free, there simply wasn't the time to untie both girls and get out of the building—

Matsuri's heart drummed out a retrig's tempo as her straining fingertips came to rest atop the bomb, prised open a panel; she allowed herself a smile as she clasped a hand around the cold copper of a carelessly bared wire. At her will, the metal blackened and disintegrated into so many useless scraps. The corrosion propagated quickly throughout the innards of the device, and the timer's face displayed 88:88 for a split second before going permanently blank.

…

"Hi, Yorito."  
The gangling young man stepped over the threshold into his home, his gaze briefly passing over the TV before settling on the girl curled up on the couch before it. The news anchor spoke of some musty crime bosses, whom Yorito was quite content having never heard of, being arrested. "Hey, Matsuri. How was your day?"  
"Oh, you know, same old, same old," Matsuri replied with her typical coy smile. "Hung out… saw Mana. You should spend some time with her once in a while, you know."  
"Hey, some people have other things to do." Mock indignation knitted Yorito's angular features. "Not everyone can lead an uneventful life like you."  
"Uneventful indeed," Matsuri mused.


End file.
